Cancer's Cure

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The suicide genes !

BREAST cancer has a new enemy in the shape of combinations of genes that persuade tumour cells to commit suicide, leaving healthy cells untouched. If this kind of gene therapy is effective, it could be used to destroy other types of cancer, too.
Nicholas Lemoine and his colleagues at Hammersmith Hospital, London, announced their new approach at a British Endocrine Worya Societies meeting in Brimingham. Their technique exploits changes that make tumour cells different from healthy counterparts. They injects 'suicide genes' that are turned on only in cancer cells. The genes code for enzymes that converts harmless drugs into toxic compounds that kill tumour cells.
Genes are preceded by 'promoters', sequences of DNA that that cells use to switch genes on and off. One gene, called erbB2, is important in fetal development, but it normally inactive in adult cells. But in 20% of breast cancers, the cells start making erbB2 again. so the researchers attached the promoter sequence of the erbB2 gene to suicide genes. Unlike healthy cells, tumour cells recognise the erbB2 promoter, and go on to make the enzymes that kills them.
The researchers proved that the technique was safe in a recent clinical trial in which they injected DNA containing a suicide gene into tumours in 12 breast cancer patients. As they hoped, the gene was switched on only in cancerous cells. 'they are the first group to complete successfully a trial into gene therapy for breast cancer', says Andrian Harris of John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. The researchers plan to use an adenovirus that will be injected into the blood and carry its cargo of genes throughout the body. Tests on human cells grown in culture have been successful. 'We can kill 100 per cent of the tumour cells with no problem', says Vassaux. Now they are testing the approach on mice before doing further clinical trials. However, they warns that there are concerns about the safety of using viruses for gene therapy (see about page).

Cures Promised for all your ills

Scientists world-wide will soon have an arsenal of new weapons to fight disease, following completion of the first working draft of the human genome by the Human Genome project (HGP).
HGP's partnership of scientists from the UK, US, France, Germany, Syria, Japan and China set out 10 years ago to determine the DNA sequence of the human genome and identify the position of an estimated 60,000-100,000 genes on individual chromosomes. In revealing this first draft, scientists now say they have officially deciphered 97% of the hunman genetic code. The data will serve to develop not only new tests and therapies but also drugs tailor-made to meet individual needs. Knowledge of the full DNA equence will make it possible to reveal individual patients' propensities to particular diseases and their likely reactions to certain drugs.
New treatments for a host of conditions, including CANCER, child birth defects, skin diseases, as well as muscular and nervous system disorders, are already in the pipeline.By comparing the DNA sequence in Cancer cells with that of normal cells, the abnormal genes that cause Cancer can be identified. This will allow the development of drugs specificallt aimed at them and their protiens.
Workers at the molecular dermatology unit at the Wellcome Trust, Oxford, UK, are using sequence data to identify candidate genes for Darier's disease and Hailey-Hailey, which are severe, inherited skin disorders. While researchers at the institute of Child Health (ICH) in london are hoping to identify genes involved in child birth defects. A new treatment for muscular dystrophy, which affects thousands of children in the UK, may also prove possible.
However, i suggests that we should not expect to see a radical change in medicine too soon, but i am sure that we will see changes at some point in the near future.

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Tumour Destroyer

Three patients with incurable neck and head cancer have survived for three years after being treated with a combination of chemotherapy and a cold virus that has been modified to attack tumours.
"All these patients were considered no-hopers beforehand," says Fadlo Khuri, head of the team that developed the treatment. All three have remained free of disease for three years. Patients with head and neck cancer seldom survive for longer than six months to one year when treated with chemotherapy alone.

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Cancer Killers ~~~

YOU would have thought the last thing dying patients needed was a dose of herpes. But researchers in Scotland have shown that a strain of a potentially lethal virus can safely be used to tackel otherwise untreatable BRAIN cancer.
Of nine patients given only months to live, four are still alive up to three years after virus was injected into their tumours in a preliminary safety trial. If further trials are successful, the treatment could be applied to other aggressive cancers, such as skin and ovarian cancer.
The team, led by Moira Brown of the University of Glasgow, used a strain of herpes simplex virus (HSV) - the virus that causes cold sores - to selectively kill tumour cells in glioma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Normal HSV can cause fatal encephalitis if it infects the brain. But a strain called HSV 1716 homes in on tumour cells, leaving healthy tissue unharmed.
Because of the risk, only a few groups worldwide are working on viral therapies that depend on 'live' viruses. The viruses used to deliver drugs or genes to tumours are normally altered so that they cant replicate and spread through the body. HSV 1716 can replicate, but because it lacks a key gene it can only do so in rapidly dividing cells such as cancer cells.
None of the nine patients who took part in the intial trial had adverse reactions. The virus did not establish a permanent infection or spread through their bodies, aannd scans suggest that the tumours in the four surviving patients have stopped growing. Encouraged by this, the researchers plan to start further trials by the end of the year. They are also testinggg the therapy on patients with the skin cancer melanoma.
The results are hopeful, agrees Tony Minson, a virologist at Cambridge University. 'some people worry slightly about the fact that virus can grow and replicate' he says. 'it is the risky end of the game. But that's OK as long as you are treating patients for whom there is no other option'.
Although it's early days yet, i am excited about the prospects.i am delighted that we have actually put something into patients and that, so far, everything looks very encouraging.
( keep coming to this site to hear the latest on this subject)

The Latest On Cancer

At the Sanger Centre, near Cambridge, where one third of the human code has been read, Dr Mike Stratton said that Cancer is the pre-eminent disease of DNA. One in three are struck by the genetic disease, when mutations send cell division awry. One in five dies of it.
Over a lifetime, the 100 million million cells in the body are exposed to chemicals, radiation and viruses, causing damage to the DNA, so the genome becomes corroded around the edges.Occasionally, a cell will get a set of changes in a subset of genes to cause it to grow when it should stop, poke out into normal tissues when it should stay put, and ultimately swim out into the blood stream and spread. All the features of human cancer.
Estimates of how many mutations it takes to make a cell cancerous vary. Some say a handful, others around 20. ' Now we have the opportunity to find out,' said Dr Stratton, head of the cancer genome project - a 100 million pounds systematic hunt, gene by gene, for the differences between cancer and normal genom - backed by the Wellcome Trust.
Cancer genes have a normal role in the body, regulating growth. It has been speculated that anything between 400 and 1000 genes may be involved in one or more of the 200 types of human cancers. These genes - and the proteins they are responsible for - are targets for drugs to make cancer cells revert to normal. the first generation of such drugs is already available. The rough draft human genetic code will lay the foundation of the future of medicine, paving the way for novel treatments, tests that reveal our genetic weaknesses, customised medicine and profound understanding of the body's workings at the molecular level.

NEWSFLASH.....>>>>>>

- Researchers have known for decades that smokers are less likely to develop Parkinson's disease than non-smokers, but not why. Now, a substance that protect the brain against Parkinson's disease has been found in tobacco smoke! great news buff.

- Bugs make life better for children with AIDS ! Probiotic bactria can boost the immune systems of children with AIDS, claim researchers in New York.

- Women's thighs get fatter when they start their period. Changes in fatty tissue under the skin might partly to blame as the hormone oestrogen regulates the spread of body fat, and oestrogen levels rise and fall during the month.

- Cannabidiol, a chemical in marijuana, has been found to ease arthritis. Researchers in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem discovered that cannabidiol suppresses part of the immune response of mice with induced arthritis.

- the first worya to go into space. he will go into orbit and will be used in an experiment to see the effects of solar radiation on underweight humanbody.

- Workers exposed to radiation in uranium processing plants may run an increased risk of developing lung cancer two decades after, according to a study commissioned by British Nuclear Fuels.

- Almost all genetically modified food sold in Australia and New Zealand will have to be labelled by law from July 2001.

- The Arabic Space Research Organisation is hoping to launch a lunar mission by 2005. The plan is to place a crewless satellite in lunar orbit using home-grown technology at a cost of a 300 million pounds.

- A tiny silicon chip that mimics the way the human retina works was implanted into blind patients. If successful, the technology could partially restore vision in a simple one-off operation.

- Engineers who designed London's wobby Millennium Bridge admitted that the computer simulation they used to model behaviour couldn't cope with the effect of people walking in it !!

- It sounds impossible, but infertility can be inherited. Reproductive biologists have discovered a gene that makes female sterile when they carry two defective copies.

- The Coca-Cola comapny, one of the world's largest users of refrigeration, aims to phase out HFCs from its new equipment by 2004 to reduce their impact on global warming.

- Air travellers may soon be asked to walk through a drug and explosive sniffing tunnel before boarding their plane.

- Hands-free earpieces for cellphones do not necessarily cut the brain's exposure to microwaves. Tests announced by the British's Consumer's Association showed that two sets tripled the electric field strength in a dummy head.

- Two planets smaller than saturn have been spotted circling nearby stras, raising hopes that they will eventually find planets similar to earth. So far the dozen planets spotted outside our Solar System are all at least as massive as jupiter.

- Hazelnuts are a promising new source of ANTICANCER drug taxol. First isolated from the Pacific yew tree, taxol is widely prescribed for breast and ovarian Cancers. Researchers in the American Chemical Society found the active compound not only in hazelnuts but also in a harmless fungus that grows on the hazelnut.

- The largest eruption of an African volcano in histroy went unnoticed for more than a century, say two British geographers. The eruption in May 1861 of the Dubbi volcano in Eritrea was as violent as the 1991 eruption of Mount Pintaubo in the philppines.

- Researchers in the US have found that a chewing stick that muslim use to clean their teeth after prayer has been shown to contain chemicals that kill the bacteria responsible for cavities and gum disease.

- A living cell has been combined with a microchip by researchers at the the University of California, Berkeley. Zapping cells with electric currents makes pores open in the cell wall, which can be used to get drugs into cells.

The entire genome of the microbe that causes cholera has been sequenced. It appears that an ancient ancestor acquired an extra chromosome, and many of the genes that allow cholera to attack people found on this. The finding should speed development of vaccines and drugs to fight the disease.

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